Some people are just scared by the dynamics on CD.Let's cut the BS.Vinyl is recorded through RIAA correction, so, there goes your "ANALOG" "fidelity" argument!If you don't know what that is, do your homework.Second of all, left channel and right channel aren't really separated on vinyl.Is a mechanical device that reads it.What most of you call warmth is just lack of dynamics and detail.Have you ever considered your music equipment equation?And most important of all, ROOM ACOUSTICS????First get rid of unwanted echoes and standin waves, try to understand what is the difference between on axis sound and room response.On a CD, what you get is what it was recorded (more or less), but on vinyl you have it through RIAA correction for crying out loud!Did you ever considered that?On CD left and right channels are really separated and they mix in YOUR HEAD!On vinyl they meet somewhere.Guess why!To my vinyl sound great, but lets face it, what you call "warmth" is rather "dryness" and lack of detail.Fix your ROOM ACOUSTICS, get some great loudspeakers and a great amp and try some great sounding album on CD!Fairly LOUD!And without any EQ correction, needless to say.I met ppl who liket the minidisc better than the CD!Give me a break!Why isn't anyone talking about SACD format here?Because SACD spells "GAME OVER"!

P.S. i AM NOT SAYING VINYL DOESN'T SOUND GREAT, I JUST POINTED OUT THERE IS NO OBJECTIVE ARGUMENT AGAINST CD!

billg at audiolabs:most recordings are analog befor they are transfered to digital.you can get the warmth of analog and still have the digital low noise figure,i have made recordings direct to a hd;which to me sounds a little raw,at some frequencys,the high end sounds very clear and undistorted,i have designed after many years an interface that makes a cassett,tape or cd sound better before it converted to digital format,it even fooled a recording eng at crystalrain studio's who thought he was listening to a cd.untill i stoped the tape.i use this to copy,from radio and vinal,as wellas cd's.

Hi all,
I would like to pin point few reasons, that I believe keeping the myth alive:
One of the reasons that Vinyl kept on living after the CD was introduced and still living up to this day, is the fact that a lot of titles - first introduced in the early years of the CD, were terribly digitally mastered or in other words ? the transformation from analog to digital was so bad, that they just sounded inferior to the Vinyl version.
Another reason is the fact that tapes made 40-50 years ago wore out with time. New CD?s made from those tapes can?t reproduce the original sound quality that was ?captured? on vinyl those days.
The third and last reason is probably the fault of sound engineers ? in the quest for more volume and compression (i.e. ? the loudness wars) more and more titles are driven to the point that the recording reaches over the 0DBFS limit, this create a distortion that sounds worse then any overdriven vinyl recording.
The bottom line, most people don?t understand and don?t care abut the technical mumbo jumbo, and make wrong comparison between one media to another (Vinyl vs. CD), instead of making the comparison between one master recording to another, and as previously written, transferring a good sounding Vinyl to CD will sound as good as the original Vinyl.
Regards,
Assaf

Hi all,
I would like to pin point few reasons, that I believe keeping the myth alive:
One of the reasons that Vinyl kept on living after the CD was introduced and still living up to this day, is the fact that a lot of titles - first introduced in the early years of the CD, were terribly digitally mastered or in other words ? the transformation from analog to digital was so bad, that they just sounded inferior to the Vinyl version.
Another reason is the fact that tapes made 40-50 years ago wore out with time. New CD?s made from those tapes can?t reproduce the original sound quality that was ?captured? on vinyl those days.
The third and last reason is probably the fault of sound engineers ? in the quest for more volume and compression (i.e. ? the loudness wars) more and more titles are driven to the point that the recording reaches over the 0DBFS limit, this create a distortion that sounds worse then any overdriven vinyl recording.
The bottom line, most people don?t understand and don?t care abut the technical mumbo jumbo, and make wrong comparison between one media to another (Vinyl vs. CD), instead of making the comparison between one master recording to another, and as previously written, transferring a good sounding Vinyl to CD will sound as good as the original Vinyl.
Regards,
Assaf

Mike,
Thanks. I enjoyed your take on the vinyl vs. CD subject as well on your blog (analogeda.blogspot.com). With all of the thing's vinyl has going against it - including the RIAA curve that you mention - it's amazing it can sound as good as it does.
Rich Pell

Rich - good post. I had to go read the Wired article and post my comments there as well. I wrote an article more than fifteen years ago on the same subject. One explanation for this current blog storm is that all bloggers are provocateurs to some extent, aren't we? One a technical level, some vinyl nuts just see all those digital waveforms as somehow inherently flawed, and science be damned to convince them otherwise.
But this comment here: "analog is digital at the fundamental physical level. So there is an underlying noise floor and distortion level that can never be overcome" is equally wrong. At what level is that Mr/Ms msd1107? The quantum level? Noise in analog is still analog; thermal noise, shot noise, 1/f noise.
These are the fundamental limits on the noise floor, not anything digital!
-Mike analogeda.blogspot.com

Not really mentioned is that analog is digital at the fundamental physical level. So there is an underlying noise floor and distortion level that can never be overcome.
Also, producing the analog record is an inherently distortion producing process. Playback is even more distortion producing at multiple levels (ever seen the response curve of a turntable responding to a noise burst?). Playback also is a destructive process, degrading the record on each playback. Paradoxically, the optimum way to preserve and enjoy your precious vinyl is to play it back once, digitizing it, store it on a computer, and play back the digitized copy.

In conjunction with unveiling of EE Times’ Silicon 60 list, journalist & Silicon 60 researcher Peter Clarke hosts a conversation on startups in the electronics industry. One of Silicon Valley's great contributions to the world has been the demonstration of how the application of entrepreneurship and venture capital to electronics and semiconductor hardware can create wealth with developments in semiconductors, displays, design automation, MEMS and across the breadth of hardware developments. But in recent years concerns have been raised that traditional venture capital has turned its back on hardware-related startups in favor of software and Internet applications and services. Panelists from incubators join Peter Clarke in debate.